Nestle, the world's largest food company, said on Wednesday
its new VertuoLine system will go on sale in the United States
and Canada this week. It will make larger cups of coffee as well
as the smaller espressos, popular in Europe, for which the brand
is already known.

The $8 billion global single-serve coffee market is one of
the fastest-growing areas of an otherwise tepid packaged-food
industry. Nestle has about 35 percent of the market globally,
but its presence in the United States is dwarfed by Green
Mountain's Keurig system, which controls more than three
quarters of the market.

"We'll watch it like we watch all of them," Green Mountain
Chief Executive Brian Kelley told Reuters at the Consumer
Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) conference in Boca Raton,
Florida.

Other rival brewers include the MyCafe from Bunn, the
Tassimo from Kraft Foods Group and Starbucks Corp's
Verismo.

Green Mountain is planning new machines as well. This fall,
it will launch Keurig 2.0, which uses both single-serve "K-Cups"
and larger-sized "K-Carafe" packs that brew 28 ounces of coffee.

"We want a brewer on every counter and we want a beverage
for every occasion of the day," said Kelley, who added that only
20 percent of people in the United States have a single-cup
coffee maker.
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